Sara’s billions: Who will now refuse to vote for impeachment?

Smoking gun.

This is how Akbayan Party-list Rep. Chel Diokno described the scandalous gap between the statement of assets, liabilities and net worth (SALNs) of Vice President Sara Duterte, which declared a net worth of P80.5 million as of 2024, and her and her husband’s flagged bank transactions totaling a staggering P6.77 billion.

Diokno is right to call it that. These are among the clearest pieces of evidence establishing probable cause in the impeachment complaints filed against the Vice President. They give the House committee on justice more than enough basis to move forward and elevate the matter to the plenary, where lawmakers will ultimately decide whether to impeach the Vice President.

The evidence speaks for itself. This is not conjecture or partisan spin; it rests on official documents Sara herself submitted as a public official, alongside records from the Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC). These are not speculative claims; they are documented facts.

And the exclamation on the smoking gun? The allegation of former senator Antonio Trillanes that the Duterte family received P181 million from alleged drug lord Samuel “Sammy” Uy. The AMLC confirmed that at least 18 bank transactions linked to the Vice President and her family members, as cited in the affidavit of Trillanes, match records of covered and suspicious transaction reports. Trillanes alleged that Sara alone received roughly P22.32 million from the drug personality between 2011 and 2013, with other members of her family (Rodrigo, Paolo, Sebastian and Kitty) also receiving funds.

But this may be just the tip of the iceberg. As the impeachment process progresses and reaches the Senate, which will act as an impeachment court, the full breadth and origin of the Duterte family’s alleged hidden wealth may finally come into sharper public view.

What’s striking but not surprising is how little of a substantive response has come from Sara’s camp. The Vice President issued a long statement that literally offers zero explanation. On the other hand, Sara’s lawyers, who seem to prefer press conferences over showing up at congressional hearings where it actually matters, argue that there is nothing inherently wrong with the AMLC flagging billions of pesos in transactions. They flimsily asserted that being tagged under suspicious transaction reports (STRs) or covered transaction reports (CTRs) does not automatically mean a crime has been committed.

The Vice President hired 16 expensive lawyers, and yet they can’t even come up with a good argument. Of course, not every suspicious bank transaction is illegal. But when you have P6.77 billion worth of bank transactions, while announcing only P80.5 million in wealth, these raise serious questions. Where did all that money come from? Why were they not declared? What were they used for?

Sara’s lawyers stopped short of explaining why her SALNs and bank records don’t line up. Why would they? There’s simply no credible and logical way to respond to that. Instead, they generously downplay Sara’s bank transactions, saying that they are not automatically criminal.

This is where the Vice President’s legal team does something unintentionally revealing. By hammering that line over and over, they just admitted, in so many words, that the transactions are real. The money exists, it moved and there is nothing criminal about it, even if it does not match her declared wealth.

And just when it seems the Sara defense could not sink any lower, lawyer Michael Poa claims that the Vice President’s “cash in bank” is lumped under “Others” or “Other Personal Properties” in her SALNs. No wonder accountants are up in arms. It is basic that cash, whether on hand or in the bank, is a major asset that must be declared separately by public officials in their SALNs. The excuse is laughable. It’s like telling your teacher that your dog ate your homework. Maybe we should ask Poa, who once served as the Department of Education (DepEd) undersecretary and spokesperson under Sara, if he applied the same creative reporting in his own SALNs?

Clearly, the Vice President has no real answer to the AMLC report. She cannot even categorically deny the billions of pesos in bank transactions allegedly made by her and her husband. Sara and her family have long cultivated an image of simplicity, portraying themselves as ordinary people, eating in carinderias and sleeping under mosquito nets, among other carefully staged dramas. They also built a reputation for being tough on crime, especially against illegal drugs. That narrative is now shattered. Behind the performance of modesty is a family whose wealth runs into the billions, sourced from drug money.

This brings us to the crucial question we now pose to members of the House of Representatives and the Senate: with the Vice President’s scandalous multibillion-peso transactions now exposed, who among the members of the House of Representatives, aside from her family and closest allies, will now dare to refuse to vote for her impeachment? And who among the senators, except those aligned with the Dutertes, will risk their political capital and public trust by choosing not to convict her?

At this point, the choice before lawmakers is clear. To ignore the overwhelming evidence is to become complicit in it. Those who will continue to shield the Vice President, whether by outright defense, cowardly abstention or convenient silence, are committing political suicide, especially as Sara’s public trust continues to erode and 2028 draws nearer.

When that day of reckoning comes, the people will remember all those who tried to bury Sara’s smoking gun and those who chose to pull the trigger for accountability.